Rug and method of making the same



Aug. 9, 1938. E. E. GOWELL RUG AND METHOD OF MAKING THE SAME Filed Dec. 25, 1936 Inventon flz' newmflaweil Patented Aug. 9, 1938 mm STATES PATENT orries 4 Claims.

The invention hereinafter to be described relates, in general terms, to rugs and the method of manufacturing the same, dealing more specifically with that type or variety of floor covering 6 commonly known as braided rugs.

The ordinary braided rug, hand braided and hand sewed, is of early origin. Womenfolk, particularly in the suburban and country districts have from time immemorial, supplied their own 10 households with these useful house furnishings, working in their spare time and utilizing any available cloth and rags for the material.

Old customs are, however, subject to change, and at the present time the demand for braided rugs is largely filled by manufacturers, some of whom still employ the old, or hand method of rug making while others have progressed to the point of using certain types of braiding and sewing machines.

Rugs of the braided variety are made by intertwining three or more strands of fabric material to form a cord or rope-like element of indefinite length, then winding this element in successive convolutions to progressively increase the size of the rug, and securing each convolution to the one inwardly adjacent as the winding operation proceeds. The final form or shape of the rug is governed by the length of the core, or central portion of the rug.

Braided rugs are usually designated as either hand or machine stitched. Hand sewing is a slow and tedious operation and incidentally much more costly than when the work is done by machine.

For this reason, braided rug manufacturers have turned to the machine-stitched rug as an expedient to overcome sales resistance met with in "marketing hand-sewed ones, which has enabled them tomeet and fill the demand for a much lowercost floor covering.

*"But machine stitching, as heretofore practiced in braided rug construction, has its short-comings in that the sewing is done in such a manner that the thread is exposed on both faces of the rug. In other words, the thread forming the stitching,

whether single or double, lock-stitch or chain, passes clear through the braids and loops across the face of the rug on both bottom and top thereof. It is therefore evident that regardless of which face is uppermost when the rug is in actual use, constant travel over it, with scuffing of the feet, will in a comparatively short time result in the threads being broken and the seams of the rug opened, necessitating repairs.

Moreover, when this condition arises, and the rug elements become disjoined, it provides a prolific source of danger to one travelling over the rug through the possibility of his catching his shoe in the opening in the rug and taking a fall.

In contrast to the just described present-day machine stitching method, hand sewed rugs are almost exclusively fabricated by stitching the braids together on one face only of the rug, this face being designedly placed next the floor and out of contact with the shoes of those passing over the rug. I 10 But as has previously been brought out, hand sewing of braided rugs brings the selling price to a prohibitive amount for many who, on the other hand, might be able to conveniently purchase a machine-sewed product.

Having in mind the present state of the art as it pertains to braided rug manufacture I have evolved my present invention, the primary object sought in which is to provide a novel, improved method of constructing rugs of this type, of any 20 shape desired, by progressively winding upon itself the braided element and continuing the winding until the accumulated convolutions thereof gradually build up the rug to the desired size, thesecuring of adjacent convolutions of the braid 25 being accomplished by machine stitching done on one face only of the rug and carried on simultaneously with the winding operation.

That face of the rug upon which the braidsecuring stitching is done is considered its bot- 30 tom, and this side is presented to the floor when the rug is in use. The top or service side of the rug is therefore devoid of stitching and presents a more attractive appearance than would otherwise be the case.

To more clearly disclose the import of my invention I have in the accompanying drawing illustrated the more essential features of my improved rug construction, similar reference characters being employed to identify like parts in all the dif- 40 ferent views thereof.

In the drawing- Fig. l is a plan view of my rug, showing a continuous, one-piece braided element;

Fig. 2 showsa fragmentary view of two adja- 45 cent portions of the braided element, drawn to an enlarged scale;

Fig. 3 illustrates the bottom face of my rug, in fragmentary view, showing the stitching;

Fig. 4 shows a sectional view and part plan of 50 two interconnecting portions of the braid;

Figs. 5 and 6 illustrate, respectively, a different structure as a substitute for the braided element;

Fig. 7 is a fragmentary plan View of the rug composed of independent strips of the cord-like 55 element, joined together to complete the convolutions of the rug, and.

Fig. 8 illustrates, for purposes of comparison, the present-day method of sewing the braids together, the braid structure being shown in dotted lines.

Referring to the drawing, l is an element composed, preferably, of three strips of cloth or other suitable material intertwined to form a braid of which it is conventional practice to construct socalled braided rugs or mats.

For the purpose of the present application this element I may consist of any one of variously fabricated cords or rope-like structures, the component parts of which are often of different colors, the completed cord being susceptible of being wound upon itself to form consecutively abutting rows which are mutually secured at their edge portions by stitching, either by hand or by machine. The cords, however, may be in separate pieces, each convolution being complee in itself, as shown in Fig. 7. In a machine stitched rug, such as is illustrated in Fig. 8, the thread T passes completely through both abutting portions of the braided element and appears on both faces of the rug elements I.

' Thus exposed to the scuffing of feet over the rug the thread sooner or later is sure to be broken and the braided parts disjoined. For this reason this type of construction is objectionable, more particularly from the fact that whichever side of the rug is uppermost when lying on the floor, the stitching is still subject to severe conditions with respect to the damage thereto by constant treading over the rug.

In Figs. 3 and 4 I show my preferred and improved method of constructing a braided rug, the stitching which secures the convolutions of the braided, or otherwise fabricated element, being done on one face only of the rug, which constitutes its bottom, and the stitching operation being accomplished by a machine, with the specific design or character of which latter I am not at the present time particularly concerned, except as will hereinafter be disclosed.

Sewing the braided convolutions together on but one face of the rug by a hand process is conventional; but this method as has been explained is expensive and does not solve the problem of a low cost article in the braided rug line.

On the other hand, a braided rug with the sewing done on the bottom face by a machine is, I believe novel, and the result sought impossible of attainment in any other way. It will be observed that the stitching 2 (see Fig. 4), is done with a slightly curved needle (not shown) using an arcuate stroke in passing the thread from one braid part to the adjoining one.

While the sewing is under way the two braids being joined are gently forced together so that after completion of the stitching the face of therug presents a substantially flat appearance.

The type of stitch may be of any character desired, but a lock stitch offers advantages over the chain type in that it is more difficult to unravel should there, by accident, be a break in the thread.

The inverted-plan view of the sewed braids (see Fig. 3), which in use is the side of the rug presented to the floor, illustrates a very uniform and strong machine stitching, while the opposite or service face of the rug (see Fig. 1) is devoid of stitching and inappearance is much more appealing to the eye than the present-day method of machine sewing, as depicted in Fig. 8, in which the stitching appears on both faces of the rug.

In summation, my improvement in braided rug construction is characterized by its enduring qualities, being the equal if not the superior of the ordinary hand-sewed ones and vastly superior to the machine-stitched variety; it is of considerably lower cost than the hand-sewed rug which means that a greater number of prospective buyers can have their needs supplied. Its appearance, when lying on a floor, is comparable to the hand-stitched product and in eye appeal surpasses by far the machine-stitch rug as now marketed.

While I have elected to illustrate and describe my present invention as it pertains to the well known braided-cord rug, I do not wish to be understood as restricting myself to this particular application, as it is obvious that the invention might be carried out in various other forms of structure and material embodying any flexible, permeable agent susceptible of being wound and stitched to form a rug substantially in the manner disclosed in the foregoing specification, and illustrated in Figs. 5 and 6, in which the material may be felt.

What I claim is:

1. A method of constructing a rug embodying the use of a flexible, cord-like element adapted to be wound upon itself to eventually form a rug of a predetermined shape and size, machine stitching the adjacent convolutions of said cordlike element to mutually secure them, said winding and said stitching operations proceeding simultaneously with the stitching being done on one face only of the rug.

2. A method of fabricating a braided-cord rug in which the braided-cord is progressively wound upon itself to form the rug, consisting in mutual- 1y securing adjacent convolutions of said braided cord by sewing, the sewing taking the form of a machine lock-thread stitch adapted to draw the edges of adjacent convolutions of the braidedcard together and done on one face only of the rug.

3. In a rug, the combination of a plurality of convolutions of a cord-like, permeable element, one convolution being wound on the next inwardly adjacent convolution to form a rug of a predetermined shape and size, and a machinemade stitching securing adjacent convolutions together, the stitching being continuous and made on one face only of the rug.

4. In an article of manufacture embodying a rug composed of a plurality of cord-like strands wound around each other in a common plane, and machine lock-stitching, securing adjacent strands together, done on one face only of the rug.

ERNEST E. GOWELL. 

